Tuesday, November 7, 2023

GREATEST PASSION PLAY EVER TOLD

I sat down to write this morning with an empty mind. I had no idea what to write. Then I received a thought… continue with Matthew chapter thirteen. I obeyed, then God filled my mind.

It certainly was not my thoughts because I was being lazy and apathetic. I would have preferred to do other things, but my routine could not be undone, so I just sat there, and God opened my eyes and took off the scales from my eyes. I saw very clearly what He would show me — all the things that happened in the dark on the day that God died, not died, died but came undone.

 

Jesus spoke to the crowd from the seashore. His device was to speak in parables — a simple story that most could understand to present the truth. It was not deception, but a ‘tool’ to use to make difficult ideas clearer.

That was required because the crowd were neither divine beings with extrasensory natures nor prophets that could see things that common people cannot see.

The crowd would not be prophets nor divine beings on this Earth, so Jesus painted for them simple pictures of abstract ideas on the ‘walls’ of their minds so they could understand what they could not see.

Now, for a moment, let’s revert to the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ of which Plato wrote. Men were chained fast so that they could not see behind them. Behind them was a light that cast shadows on the cave wall. To them, that ‘fragment’ (the shadows) of the real thing became their truth. The shadow of the things behind them allowed them to see what was going on just out of their sight.

Parables are much like that. The parables are ‘shadows’ of the truth. Lost men, chained to the ideas of the world, were revealed the truth by Jesus ‘painting a picture’ for them in their minds’ eyes.

Some asked Jesus Why He spoke in parables. His answer was this: 

I speak to them in parables: because them seeing, see not and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which says, “By hearing you shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing you shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”

But blessed are your eyes, for they see and your ears, for they hear. (Mat 13:13-16)

 They could all see and hear but failed to understand, even since the days of Isaiah and before. It is not that they were stupid but that they could not comprehend the boundless knowledge of God. They were so dull that for mankind to understand Himself, God would soon paint a living picture of a Man dying in their minds. [1]

Now return to the beginning. God told Adam about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. “…in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). Until the time of Jesus, many still failed to believe that they would die. They freely ate of the wisdom of the world from the forbidden tree, but they should have eaten from the Tree of Life, or which they could freely eat.

The words, “surely die” is not an exact translation; it should have been “die, die.” God said it twice to make it clear, just as any orator will repeat himself for clarity.

Jesus came to satisfy the promised grace. Mankind deserved to die, die; but the grace was that a person could die, then live.

The crucifixion was about God painting a living picture. He loved His creatures so intensely (John 3:16) that He painted a picture in much more detail than Di Vinci did of the last supper. (It is said that it took years for Di Vinci to paint the Last Supper, doing so a small portion at a time.)

Well, God painted a picture of His death much more vividly, but so many still fail to understand all that detail.

First God made the ‘canvas’ on which to paint the picture. It was Calvary, not by coincidence on the cranium (Calvary) of the world. Beneath the rocks, there He had Shem and Melchizedek bury Adam in the place of his skull, according to sacred literature. He painted the picture for both Adam and his kind, not just for the Jews.

Then God created the Roman Empire to reveal to the world the type of empire that He was Himself ‘Caesar’ over, as ‘King of kings and LORD of lords” (Rev 19:16). That took much time, but God’s time is not our time! Jesus was not subject to Caesar, but Caesar to Jesus, and He made that clear.

Pilate, as prelate of Caesar, who was on permanent vacation on the island of Capri, had the authority of Caesar. He was the ‘right hand of Caesar,’ just as Jesus was the ‘Right Hand of God.’

Pilate thought that he was in charge, even perhaps having delusions of grandeur. He would make a name for himself for killing God.

That failed.

Pilate, making only a name for himself in the Bible, disappeared quickly into oblivion. Here is the picture of that, that God painted into the minds of the readers of the Word: 

Said Pilate unto Him, “Speak you not unto me? know you not that I have power to crucify you, and have power to release you? Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me, except it were given you from above” (John 19:10-11)

 Pilate had no power and neither did Caesar. As it turned out the ‘right hand of Caesar,’ Pilate, was cutoff, and Jesus revealed that He was not just ‘king of the Jews’ but both Caesar and God, that the emperor claimed to be! [2]

In ancient days, Nebuchadnezzar was made king and god for a time just to destroy the Jews and then he was humbled, and now there was Pilate who was there to save the nations, and Jesus humbled him. Nations were made for God to plant the world’s greatest picture in the minds of its citizens — the apparent death of God!

Continuing to ignore the parable, focus on the real ‘painting,’ not the ‘caricature’ in the parable.

The crucifixion was an enactment of the ‘Allegory of the Cave.’

With no cave on Calvary, excepting the tomb of Adam beneath (it is claimed to be there today and is a tourist attraction), God made a special ‘cave’ for those chained to watch.

Think of the multitude surrounding Jesus as the people chained to the wall so that they must see the Shadow on the wall, so to speak.

God prepared the scene for them, “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour” (Mat 27:45). God created for them a ‘cave’ and on one ‘wall’ of the cave, He placed Jesus. He fixed Him on the wall, and that ‘wall’ was the portal from life to death. The Holy Cross was the ‘Wall’ on which Jesus was fixed. Those with bright eyes, even in the dark, could see clearly the Man, Jesus, by the huge Shadow that He cast.

In this case, the men were not chained; the Savior was, but they were in invisible chains — they were blind to the truth! It was them that Satan and the government held captive, even the religious Sanhedrin. Although Jesus was nailed, it was the crowd that was in chains. (That is much the case in this era).

So, it was not an ‘allegory’ but reality. Neither was this ‘picture’ a parable but a revelation for those with bright eyes.

Something happened on Calvary for all those in chains. Suddenly, Jesus “cried with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? ‘ that is to say, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?’” (Mat 27:46).

First there was Light and then it got dark. The Father is ‘Adoil’ — the Light. [3] With the Light gone and Jesus forsaken, as usual, those with bright eyes could see in the dark. God lit the scene for just a few; He cast the ‘Shadow’ of the Man Jesus for those with bright eyes to see.

“Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the Ghost” (Mat 27:50).

Arkhas (Jesus) became undone. First the Light (Adoil) was there, then He went first, and next the Holy Ghost departed, and then there was One — the body of God without either Image; neither the ‘Light’ nor the ‘Shadow.’ The Godhead came undone to reveal His three substances. After all, the Holy Ghost — the ‘Shadow’ of God — revealed right there in the darkness that God made that ‘it’ is as real as the Man, Jesus, was then.

The Holy Ghost is still Jesus and Jesus is still Yahweh. The performance that God created revealed the truth, to answer Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

Just who there had bright eyes enough to see God in Jesus even in the dark? Pontius Pilate, Dismus the repentant thief, Longinus the centurion who pierced him in the side to make sure that Jesus was dead, dead; the apostles whose eyes were finally opened, and some of the women.

That was the greatest Parable ever told but although it was simple for God to paint, it was still too hard for the most to believe! Think of all the trouble Yahweh took just to prove that He is who He says He is.

That was proof enough for Pilate who got it; he found no fault in Jesus at all (John 18:38), and Longinus believed that Jesus was who He said He was (John 19:35)!

Few understood the parables of Jesus and even the apostles retained their doubts. The final proof was revealed in detail. God painted a living picture that even a fool could have seen. He died, died to reveal to Adam’s kind what death was. His body lost its animation, and His Soul went elsewhere. For a few days.

The Body of Jesus was undone. God was gone and so was the Ghost of Jesus. The Good News is that God became whole again, and so can those who trust Him! Just as Jesus and Adam were resurrected soon after, surely Jesus will come quickly for those who see Him for what He IS.

Most people are familiar with the parables that Jesus spoke, but nobody seems to have never heard of the 'Allegory of Jesus' that He performed. 

(picture credit; Sociological Cinema; "Allegory of the Cave")

 

 




[1] In the Garden before sin, Adam and Eve had bright eyes and bright natures, according to the Books of Adam and Eve. Sin darkened their eyes and dulled their glorious natures and they became brutish.

[2] Caesar claimed to be God and appointed himself Pontifiex Maximus. That was the Identity of Jesus alone!

[3] Enoch wrote of God as the Light – Adoil — and that Arkhas came undone. That could be the Word as well as Jesus, when the Cross undone the Godhead to reveal the Holy Trinity.

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